In this perilous decade of transition — for both Humans and Nature — an awakening mind must not underrate the evolutionary value of a wandering mind, because the human mind cannot be creative if it doesn’t wander freely, and regularly.
The evolved human trait of discursive thinking is an equal term in Nagarjuna’s teaching of the inseparable Two Truths: Absolute Truth (direct before thought experience) and relative truth (conceptual). It is even, paradoxically, consistent with Dogen’s stern warning to those of us who waver in the practice of timeless and unworldly non-thinking: “Is it good to enjoy the fleeting world? The body is transient like dew on the grass and your life is swift like a flash of lightning.” The paradox is that, now more than ever, there is not only the Great Matter of seeing before conception, but there is also unprecedented — meaning the shifting of ALL our existentially dangerous Human-and-Nature paradigms — conceptual work to be done before we die.
Yes, it might take a whole lifetime for some of us to clearly see what Nagarjuna called Absolute Truth, and this work is not to be neglected. But, working with his “relative truth”, working with technological and evo-ecological concepts, is now Absolutely critical for the understanding and restoration of Humans and Nature.
As the Natural world tips toward irreversible mass extinction — unimaginable in Buddha’s time, as was technological and societal change itself — the Awakening of a human mind to its endless and desperate brooding on Nagarjuna’s endlessly propagating second truths, just means that these are now, and painlessly, in the service of the First Truth. Not the other way around.
